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News & Analysis

937 posts

News & Analysis

Led by China, Egypt, 199 Journalists Now in Prison

by CPJ and GIJN Staff • December 15, 2015

The Committee to Protect Journalists is out with its annual census of journalists in prison, and, as always, the report makes for grim reading. Check it out, anyway — it’s important our community knows what’s happening to our colleagues around the world. Here’s the quick and dirty: Globally, CPJ found 199 journalists in prison because of their work on December 1, 2015, a modest decline from record highs of the past three years. (There were 221 in 2014.) CPJ’s list does not include the many journalists imprisoned and released throughout the year.

News & Analysis

Propaganda & Media Freedom

by OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media • December 14, 2015

We’re pleased to run this excerpt from the recent report, Propaganda and Freedom of the Media, produced by the Office of The Representative on Freedom of the Media at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). “These are trying times,” said the Representative, Dunja Mijatović, at the November 26 roll out of the report, during which she branded propaganda “an ugly scar on the face of modern journalism” and called on governments “to get out of the news business.”

News & Analysis

Why the Open Government Partnership Needs a Reboot

by Steven Adler • December 12, 2015

OGP needs a new organizational structure with new methods for evaluating national commitments. There aren’t enough support unit resources to manage the expansion. We have to rethink how we manage national commitments and how we evaluate what it means to be an open government. It’s just not right that countries can celebrate baby steps at OGP events while at the same time passing odious legislation, sidestepping OGP accomplishments, buckling to corruption, and cracking down on journalists.

News & Analysis

ARIJ Awards Highlight Reporting by Arab Investigative Journalists

by ARIJ and GIJN Staff • December 10, 2015

Arab journalists work amid some of the world’s most challenging environments. Terrorists and militias, arbitrary arrests and harassment, autocratic governments, and a lack of documents and data are just a few of the challenges they face on a daily basis. And yet, despite these conditions, extraordinary work is being done by investigative journalists in the Arab world.

News & Analysis

Do Russian Media Get a Boost from Bots on Twitter?

by Lawrence Alexander • December 3, 2015

Hundreds of what appear to be Twitter bots are artificially inflating the retweet and favorite counts of tweets with links to articles from some of Russia’s top news agencies. Lawrence Alexander discovered that these same fake accounts have previously mass-posted links to scores of pro-Kremlin LiveJournal blogs—themselves part of a network of thousands. In this piece, which originally appeared on Global Voices, Alexander walks us through his research process.

News & Analysis

A Global Assault on Nonprofits

by Douglas Rutzen • November 30, 2015

In an era of increasing hostility to independent media, one of the bright spots is the rapid expansion of journalism nonprofits around the world — training, promoting, and reporting on stories that otherwise would never see the light of day. But a dangerous trend now threatens the progress our colleagues have made on press freedom and watchdog reporting: a crackdown on nonprofit organizations. Restrictions on international funding account for more than a third of the measures since 2012. With that in mind, we are pleased to reprint this important story from the Journal of Democracy, detailing the global scope of the backlash.

News & Analysis

COLPIN Showcases Latin America’s Best Muckraking

by Gabriela Manuli • November 25, 2015

The seventh Latin American Investigative Journalism Conference ended on Monday, bringing together 150 journalists from some 15 countries in Lima, Peru. The conference, held November 20-23, presented awards to an impressive array of stories from across the region. Noting the quality of the awards submissions, veteran journalist Gustavo Gorritti declared, “El periodismo de investigacion se ha salvado.” (“Investigative Journalism has been saved.”)

News & Analysis

The Pentagon, Propaganda, and Independent Media

by Peter Cary • November 23, 2015

Gone are the days of complaints about information operations and psychological operations (PSYOPS) undermining media development being pursued by USAID and its contractors. But those have been replaced by broader concerns that the U.S government overall may now be too focused on counter-messaging at the expense of independent media development. “We are concerned that there is an increasing shift away from supporting genuinely independent media towards what might be termed counter-propaganda and promoting counter narratives,” says James Deane, director of policy and learning at BBC Media Action.

News & Analysis

European Parliament Taken to Court by Journalists from all EU

by MEPs Project • November 20, 2015

For the first time ever journalists representing all European member states have teamed up to file complaints with the European Court of Justice against the European Parliament (EP). The institution refused to grant the journalists’ requests for access to information related to how the 751 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) spend their allowances. Journalists filed complaints with the Court of Justice on 13 November.

News & Analysis

Investigative Journalists Form Alliance in Latin America

by James Breiner • November 17, 2015

Cross-border cooperation was the big takeaway from a three-day meeting of investigative journalists from 17 countries in San Juan, Puerto Rico, November 4-6. Billed as “The First Caribbean Meeting of Investigative Journalists: Tracking the Stories that Connect Us,” one aim was to create a counterweight to the power of organized crime by cooperating across borders, according to Carla Minet of the Center of Investigative Journalism of Puerto Rico.

News & Analysis

Media Innovators Inspire Hope Around the World

by James Breiner • November 16, 2015

A year ago I wrote an article about digital media startups around the world and attempts to categorize and analyze them. Some of that material is now a bit dated, and I have come across some other analyses and lists that have good road maps for media entrepreneurs.

News & Analysis

FOPEA Honors Investigative Journalism in Argentina

by GIJN Staff • November 9, 2015

More than 30 journalists were honored Friday night as award-winners and finalists in Argentina’s annual investigative awards competition. The awards were sponsored by the Argentinian Journalism Forum (FOPEA), the only member of the Global Investigative Journalism Network in that country.

News & Analysis

UNESCO Report Calls for Stronger Source Protection

by GIJN Staff • November 2, 2015

On the occasion of International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists, UNESCO is releasing a new study today, World Trends In Freedom of Expression and Media Development. Of particular note is the chapter Protecting Journalism Sources in the Digital Age. We are reprinting below that section’s key findings and recommendations, which add another important voice calling for stronger measures to protect sources.

News & Analysis

Internet Freedom Declines for Fifth Straight Year in 2015

by GIJN Staff • October 31, 2015

Here’s the annual map of global Internet freedom, drawn from Freedom on the Net 2015, released this week by Freedom House. The news is not good: Internet freedom worldwide declined for the fifth straight year in 2015, with more governments censoring information of public interest while expanding surveillance and restricting privacy tools, the report found. More than 61 percent of Internet users reside where criticism of governments, militaries, or ruling families have been subject to online censorship. A striking 58 percent live in countries where people have been imprisoned for posting political, social, or religious content.

News & Analysis

Int’l Day To End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists

by GIJN Staff • October 23, 2015

There is a war on journalism around the world, and those attacking us are literally getting away with murder. Over the past decade more than 700 journalists have been killed — and less than one in ten of those cases have been solved. On average, a journalist is killed every five days while practicing his or her profession. Join your colleagues this November 2 for International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists. There will be events around the world spearheaded by UNESCO, the UN agency with a mandate to defend freedom of expression and press freedom.

News & Analysis

UN’s New Global Goal: Ensuring Public Access to Info

by Bill Orme • September 26, 2015

On September 25, world leaders adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at a United Nations summit. The new goals commit all 193 UN member states to an ambitious development agenda that calls for poverty eradication, environmental protection, gender equality, disease prevention, universal schooling, ‘inclusive’ growth, and good governance – and includes, for the first time a commitment to public access to information. This new commitment has potentially transformative implications for the free flow of information and independent media development worldwide.

News & Analysis

Reporter’s Journal: A Malaria Arrest

by Francis Mbala • August 24, 2015

What happens when a journalist investigates treatment facilities for malaria patients in Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo? For Francis Mbala, it led to his arrest and a Kafkaesque tale about the dangers of investigating in one of the world’s most corrupt countries. Mbala’s story comes from the ZAM Chronicle and is reprinted with permission.

News & Analysis

Database Launched with +300 Latin American Investigations

by Gabriela Manuli • July 14, 2015

A unique database of more than 300 investigative journalism reports from across Latin America was launched this week by The Institute for Press and Society (Instituto Prensa y Sociedad, or IPYS). Called BIPYS (Banco de Investigaciones Periodisticas, or Bank of Investigative Journalism) the UNESCO-backed initiative was announced July 6 at the annual conference of Abraji, Brazil’s investigative journalism association.

News & Analysis

Can Crowdfunding Support Media Business Models?

by Damian Radcliffe • July 10, 2015

Monday July 6 saw the launch of The Ferret, a new Scottish investigative journalism platform, which joins an expanding list of media business models benefitting from crowdfunding. Given the seemingly increased popularity of this funding route many media players will understandably be asking if this source of income is for them. In this article we explore some of the benefits – and potential pitfalls – anyone exploring these channels needs to consider.

News & Analysis

Investigative Journalists Share Ideas in Brazil, Germany, UK

by GIJN Staff • July 4, 2015

This is a busy weekend for muckrakers: investigative journalists are meeting in Brazil, Germany, and the UK for seminars, training sessions, and networking. The events, sponsored by GIJN members Abraji, Centre for Investigative Journalism, and Netzwerk Recherche, have brought together more than 1200 journalists from around the world. All three events include a range of practical sessions on investigative techniques, data journalism, and new models of muckraking.

News & Analysis

What If We Disclose Everything?

by Marcus Siqueira • June 16, 2015

From my experience of more than eight years managing transactions and capacity building programs in Latin America and Africa, a radical approach to transparency is the key to enable public-private partnerships to deliver more and better infrastructure services. The crude truth is that opaque policies serve a lot of interests, but almost none of them benefit service users or taxpayers.

News & Analysis

When Sources Lie: Why You Can’t Rely on Confidence or Consistency

by Heinrich Böhmke • May 29, 2015

How do reporters know when their sources are telling the truth? In the collapse of Rolling Stone’s November story on campus rape, a gullible reporter relied far too heavily on the unchallenged word of an alleged victim. Heinrich Böhmke, an adviser to the African Network of Centers for Investigative Reporting, takes a look back at the case and warns that journalists should learn from the law and apply a tough standard even when sources are convincing, confident, and have consistent stories.

News & Analysis

Why Good Journalism Matters

by Lee Hamilton • May 22, 2015

I have been involved in politics and policy-making for over 50 years, and as you can imagine I hold strong feelings about reporters and the media. They’re not what you might think, however. Far from considering journalists to be irritating pains in the neck — though I’ve known a few who qualified — I believe them to be indispensable to our democracy.

News & Analysis

Muckraking in Myanmar: Press Freedom “Can End Tomorrow”

by Saw Yan Naing • May 21, 2015

Burma is one of the world’s champions of media censorship. The Committee to Protect Journalists recently ranked my country as No. 9, while listing Eritrea and North Korea as the most censored countries worldwide. Should I be proud of this? Ironically, yes. Burma, also known as Myanmar, was ranked No. 2 in 2006 when I started working as a journalist, so this ranking is an improvement.

News & Analysis

Ukraine’s Mezhyhirya Fest To Focus on War Crimes, Security

by Katya Gorchinskaya and Vlad Lavrov • May 19, 2015

For the second time, organizers of MezhyhiryaFest are going to bring together more than 300 journalists and public activists on June 6-7, establishing a tradition of celebrating the Journalist’s Day in the former billion-dollar estate of runaway President Viktor Yanukovych, who continues to hide out from murder and corruption charges in Russia.

News & Analysis

A Call for Collaboration: Data Mining in Cross-Border Investigations

by Jonathan Stray and Drew Sullivan • May 19, 2015

Over the past few years we have seen the huge potential of data and document mining in investigative journalism. Tech savvy networks of journalists such as the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) have teamed together for astounding cross-border investigations. OCCRP has even incubated its own tools, such as VIS, Investigative Dashboard and Overview. But we need to do better. There is enormous duplication and missed opportunity in investigative journalism software.

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